Biodiversity level changes can have consequences for species and habitats around the world. A new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, reaffirms previous findings that higher diversity in ecological communities may lead to reduced disease threat. The study concludes that higher amphibian diversity in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest is linked to a lower infection rate of a fungus that is devastating amphibian populations around the world.

In the 1950s, thousands of Baiji river dolphins (pictured) plied the waters of the Yangtze, Asia's mightiest river. The Chinese river dolphin had evolved over 20 millions of years, and was revered as the goddess of the Yangtze. By 1994, fewer than 100 individuals remained, and by 2006, the dolphin had become extinct . A proud branch on the tree of life had been destroyed in the blink of an eye by pollution, dam building, and reckless navigation.
Sadly, the goddess of the Yangtze is not alone in her fate. The last Chinese paddlefish was sighted in 2003. The majestic Chinese sturgeon is considered to be critically endangered as well. Of the 143 fish species which were historically recorded in the Yangtze River, only 17 were left in 2013.
As many as 30 million animal, plant and fungi species populate Planet Earth. About 1.7 million of them have been identified and described. What is the health of these plant and animal kingdoms? Which species groups are at particular risk? Are the extinct Chinese river ...

A common loon. (Photo: Matthew / Flickr )
Holderness, New Hampshire - Tiffany Grade sweeps her binoculars over tangled tree roots at water’s edge. She spots a black and white checkerboard of feathers in a lichen-covered crease in the shoreline – a loon sitting on a nest. Just offshore, a second loon glides past, dives, then disappears.
Also see: Heavy Metal Songs: Contaminated Songbirds Sing the Wrong Tunes
To the untrained eye, it’s an idyllic summer scene on Squam Lake. But to a loon biologist like Grade, it’s trouble.
“Do you see the way he stretches his neck up?” Grade says, pointing to the diving bird. “He knows he’s some place he shouldn’t be.”
The male intruder is biding his time until the nesting loon leaves. This vying for territory imperils the unhatched chick: Its parents can be killed or distracted, leaving the egg undefended or the chick unfed. And if one parent is ousted, the intruder kills the chick.
At Squam Lake, it’s social chaos. Chicks are dying. Eggs aren’t hatching.
It’s a scenario ...

A common loon. (Photo: Matthew / Flickr )
Holderness, New Hampshire - Tiffany Grade sweeps her binoculars over tangled tree roots at water’s edge. She spots a black and white checkerboard of feathers in a lichen-covered crease in the shoreline – a loon sitting on a nest. Just offshore, a second loon glides past, dives, then disappears.
Also see: Heavy Metal Songs: Contaminated Songbirds Sing the Wrong Tunes
To the untrained eye, it’s an idyllic summer scene on Squam Lake. But to a loon biologist like Grade, it’s trouble.
“Do you see the way he stretches his neck up?” Grade says, pointing to the diving bird. “He knows he’s some place he shouldn’t be.”
The male intruder is biding his time until the nesting loon leaves. This vying for territory imperils the unhatched chick: Its parents can be killed or distracted, leaving the egg undefended or the chick unfed. And if one parent is ousted, the intruder kills the chick.
At Squam Lake, it’s social chaos. Chicks are dying. Eggs aren’t hatching.
It’s a scenario ...

Among the many different resources that scientists will use to try to forestall some of the effects of climate change, the nation's treasure trove of preserved plants, animals, and microscopic organisms is undoubtedly one of the least known to most people. But these biological collections represent a very powerful tool for understanding how climate change is likely to affect life on Earth.
Our nation has a rich heritage in such collections, which are held at about 1,000 scientific research institutions such as universities, natural history museums, and botanical gardens. What are in these collections? They consist of such things as the skeletons and skins of mammals, birds and reptiles; fossils, tissue samples, and fish and spiders preserved in fluid; dried plants and fungi glued to stiff paper or stored in boxes; and tiny organisms on microscope slides. Although no one knows exactly, we estimate that there are approximately one billion preserved specimens in the U.S. that have been gathered by ...

This is Dendrogramma enigmatica. And as its name suggests, it’s quite the enigma.
In fact, the tiny, mushroom-shaped organism is so mysterious that it seems to defy just about everything we know about animals. It doesn't fit into any of the known categories in the animal kingdom, scientists say, and as of now, its links to other animal groups remain hazy.
Recently, D. enigmatica was thrown into the spotlight when Jean Just, a zoologist at the Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, discovered it among invertebrate specimens he had collected at depths of 400 and 1,000 meters in the Tasman Sea in the 1980s.
According to a new study co-authored by Just and published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE , more than a dozen of the specimens were found to defy classification in the tree of life. They were unique.
"Finding something like this is extremely rare, it's maybe only happened about four times in the last 100 years ," study co-author Jorgen Olesen, an associate professor at the University of ...

Life is changing. Now we can have a garden on our roof, but the wildlife and energy-transforming possibilities are really building up. I doubt if you’ll like some of our ideas here, but there may be some way you can imagine a green roof being of benefit and fitting in to your local landscape.

When people talk about using chemicals on the farm, oftentimes they use the word "pesticides." To people outside agriculture, pesticides tends to be the catch-all category for any and all chemical compound we spray on our crops. And honestly, that is far from the truth. We don't have a jug labeled "pesticides" that goes on anything and everything. In agriculture we call any sort of chemical we use on the farm "crop-protection products."
The truth about the crop-protection products we use on the farm is that we use specific chemicals labeled for very specific uses and at very specific amounts. I've written before that as farmers we have a choice in what seed to select. We also have a choice when it comes to what we put on our crops. It varies depending on crop, soil, crop rotation, current condition of the crop, pests, and moisture. The choices we make regarding what to spray are careful, calculated, and measured out. It is not something we do haphazardly or thoughtlessly like many websites will ...

Saliva contains important substances helps us digest food. It also plays a part in keeping our mouths clean and healthy. Another newly discovered use? Making toxic plants less toxic. Not for us of course, but according to new research, moose and reindeer saliva can help can slow the growth of a toxic grass fungus, and subsequently make it less toxic for them, allowing the animals to graze on the grass without negative effects.

This story originally appeared on Mother Nature Network.
About 6 million American bats have died from white-nose syndrome since its mysterious 2006 debut, and the disease's rapid spread still threatens the survival of some species. But if scientists are right about a few little brown bats in the U.S. Northeast, there may finally be a light at the end of the tunnel.
A new study from Vermont suggests up to 96 percent of little brown bats survived last winter's hibernation in Aeolus Cave, a major bat hangout that has been riddled with white-nose syndrome (WNS) since 2008. First reported by the Associated Press, this is at least the third known case of WNS seemingly losing its grip on a bat colony. Two caves in New York have shown similar hints of recovery, and biologists in Vermont also recently found the rate of that state's bat die-off may be slowing down .
The Aeolus Cave researchers radio-tagged 442 little brown bats before hibernation began last fall, then installed equipment to record how many tagged ...

A new system for cleaning soils contaminated with industrial toxins harnesses the power of White rot - a common fungus that decays fallen wood in forests. Research in Finland shows it can also destroy dioxins and poly-aromatic hydrocarbons.

By Brendan O'Brien
April 10 (Reuters) - Bats in Wisconsin and Michigan have been infected with a disease that has killed millions of the mosquito-eating mammals elsewhere in the U.S. and could have a detrimental impact on farming and forestry, wildlife officials said on Thursday.
White-nose syndrome appeared in five small brown bats collected in February and March in northern Michigan during routine surveillance, the state's Department of Natural Resources said in a statement.
"Even though we've known this disease was coming, it is a disappointing day," said Dan O'Brien, a department wildlife veterinarian.
Two bats in Wisconsin tested positive for the fungal disease after they were collected in a mine during winter surveillance in Grant County, near the Illinois border, where the disease was confirmed in 2012.
White-nose syndrome is mainly spread from bat to bat, but it is also possible for humans to transport spores via clothing and gear from fungus contaminated sites such as caves and ...

A Maine man went to look for mushrooms, but instead, came home with something much cuter and charismatic.

Jared Buzzell was driving with a friend when he saw a car hit a porcupine ahead of him. He then decided to approach the critter and search for its bezoar -- a stone-like material that some think has medicinal value. Instead of the bezoar, he found an adorable baby porcupine that he is now rearing and rehabilitating at his house.

Until the Buzzells give him away to a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, they are enjoying the extra guest and feeding it every few hours with a baby doll bottle. Could this lucky little porcupine get any cuter!?

The critically endangered harlequin frog (Atelopus varius), believed to be extinct in Costa Rica, has been rediscovered in the Talamanca Mountains of southern Costa Rica by an international team of researchers. The harlequin frog was a relatively common species in areas of Costa Rica and Panama until 1988, when populations declined rapidly, primarily as a result of the invasive, infectious chytrid fungus (implicated in extinctions of hundreds of amphibian species globally). The increasingly rare harlequin was believed extirpated from Costa Rica until 2004, when two individual harlequin frogs were spotted in a remote area near Manuel Antonio National Park in the western region of the country. Unfortunately, no harlequin frogs have been seen at this location since then.